How can this small San Luis Obispo County community allow a human to be put in jail more than once to be (re)- diagnosed for an illness “schizophrenia/ bi-polar,” wait months for a court date to make another court date and then be court ordered to be forced medicated. This is called “Deemed Incompetent.”
Then they “rehearse” understanding how to speak in a courtroom setting; answer to the judge and their charges. Things they did deep in their illness.
There are some young people sitting in the SLO jail for many months without any medical help for their brain disease. Often, the ill person has to wait for a bed to be available at a state hospital to receive the court ordered treatment. This treatment works and psychotropic medications are used.
So, if a person is sent to a state hospital to help someone with a severe mental illness, court ordered medication to understand basic court stuff! Why would the much needed medication be taken away? As the mother of a severely mentally ill adult child I am grieving to understand how to change this.
Learn and understand the illness is provided at the end of this letter in a YouTube video.
SLO County provides some programs that are available only when court ordered. These court ordered programs provide some housing miles away from the 2-hour four to five days a week program based on drugs and alcohol, not their mental illness.
Medication for life long illness is also court ordered and if the program is not working for the person struggling with the diagnosed illness and the program dismisses the ill person from the program, the court ordered medication is also stopped. So now the ill person has broken their court ordered plan and if they do not do something to get rearrested waiting on court dates can be months and the ill person is often now becoming very ill due to lack of psychotropic medications. They have no money, nowhere to live and they are hungry.
Where is the common sense? How can this community allow a first time diagnosed schizophrenic to have to be re-arrested to get the proven help they need! Worse, this happens to many in our community who have gone through what we call the “revolving door “ a half dozen times or more.
Scars remain on the ill from the horrific treatment they endure while in psychosis. This affects them mentally and emotionally and, from the chains they are forced to wear, physical scars remain.
Psychosis affects people in different ways. You might experience it once, have short episodes throughout your life, or live with it most of the time.
How can we *remove the screws and stop oiling the “revolving door”. How can we *talk to our courtrooms?
How can we *allow family / caregivers to be always involved? www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv-TukNhHqs
Dawn Marie Anderson
Los Osos